Oh brother, didn’t we just play these two teams?  Cheering for the Bobcats is starting to feel like cheering for Law & Order reruns.  The Bobcats played the Bucks and the Hawks each for the second time in about 5 minutes, and the outcome on both occasions was the same as always: miserable, humiliating failure.  This is no diversion from my regular life at all; in fact, it’s just like real life: tedious and repetitive.  I don’t know why I keep coming back for more.  And yet I do.  What can I say?  When the night falls, my loneliness calls…

Perhaps it’s the fun of deciphering coach Paul Silas, who in an article with Hardwood Paroxysm, offered up this analogy for Kemba Walker and Bismack Biyombo: “It takes at least two to three years before they really understand how to play. So the guy might have a lot of athletic ability, but it’s like a baby. A baby and a two year-old, it’s quite a difference.”  Much to my surprise, the next line in that quote was not, “Now hand me another bottle of glue to sniff.”  Besides just being deeply weird, does that analogy even work?  After all, how much more sophisticated is a 2 year-old than an infant?  A 2 year-old is still largely immobile, cries heavily, and defecates itself.  In fact, even its few advancements are mostly undesirable: it can now bite, scream, refuse, and destroy.

Unfortunately, against the Bucks on Friday, Walker played little better than an actual 2 year-old, spitting up 6-for-26 shooting and drooling out 4 turnovers.  On the other hand, at least one of our players looked like he’s ready for middle school, and that would be Byron Mullens.  On the strength of his 31-and-14 effort, the Bobcats managed to grope their way to a 1-point lead late in the game, causing the Bucks announcers and the entire Milwaukee crowd to collectively push the panic button.

Did anyone catch NBA Commissioner David Stern’s remarks to the New Orleans Times-Picayune?  He proudly announced that the Hornets are very close to having a new team owner with a sweet deal “that will have a very favorable lease, important capital improvements, intense tax benefits and a new TV deal to boot.’’  First of all, I love how he describes the tax benefits as “intense.”  Second, has anyone bothered to think about what any of that means?  Sorry to go all Dave Zirin on you, but check this out:

• A “favorable lease” translates to “cheap/zero rent,” which is crucial, because guess who owns New Orleans Arena?  The state of Louisiana.  No revenue for you, LA, except whatever you can get out of concerts and the occasional crawfish convention.  (But I’m sure that will be more than enough to recoup the $100+ million you charged taxpayers to build the place)
• “Important capital improvements” implies that somebody other than the team owner, such as the owners of New Orleans Arena (which is who again?) will be borrowing/taxing to pay for more luxury boxes for the ultra-wealthy so that they don’t have to mix with the plebeians (a.k.a., the ones paying the taxes).
• “Intense tax benefits” means “intense tax benefits.”

So congratulations, Louisiana, you’re about to go even further in debt for the privilege of making some plutocrat even wealthier than he already is!  I don’t know why I’m upset over this—I mean, it’s not like New Orleans has any infrastructure needs or anything!  Well, other than the Lower 9^th Ward, which apparently is in danger of turning into Cambodia circa-1975.  The few remaining citizens are afraid to go outside because they might get attacked—not by drug dealers or rapists, by wild animals.  But who cares when you’ve got the 2012-2013 Hornets: Catch the Buzz!

The Bobcats game against the Knicks was blacked out again for those of us in the NYC-area—and that was the highlight of the week.  That relatively close loss was followed up with increasingly worse results against the Rockets and the Hawks.  Opposing teams aren’t just dribbling circles around Charlotte, they’re dribbling Epcot Centers.  The offense is entirely too dependent on long-range, low-percentage 2’s, and the defense is a full-fledged, catastrophic atrocity.  Teams are scoring on us every which way—through guard penetration, put-backs, 3’s, and however it is that Chandler Parsons put up 20. Oh, and don’t forget the foul line: the Knicks and the Hawks shot freebies a combined 68 times. Meanwhile, with both teams tied at 33 in the second quarter in Tuesday’s game, Houston went on the lamest 10-point “run” ever, featuring a stretch of six straight free throws (they also missed three of them—the entire gruesome sequence should be under investigation by the FCC).  The Bobcats never recovered, nor did traumatized audiences at home.  In short, it was the type of week in which every shot of beleaguered coach Paul Silas’s facial expressions reminded me of the look my dog makes when my wife tries to make him wear a t-shirt.

With the Hawks dead on their feet after a triple-OT loss, and with the Bobcats pathetically unable to take advantage, Friday’s game should have been dubbed the Atlanta Zombies against the Charlotte Cripples.  Atlanta point guard Jeff Teague—clearly still suffering from bite wounds the night before—was unable to penetrate, and the Hawks in general moved at an undead crawl (2 fast break points total), so their only chance of winning was going to be through long-distance 2’s and 3’s…which is exactly what they did.  After the second quarter, it was bombs away for the Hawks from 15-feet and beyond.  Marvin Williams, Josh Smith, Vladimir Radmonovic, and most of all Joe Johnson (by the way, did you know he signed for $119 million for 6 years—119-for-6! To me, the story of JJ’s contract is like the story of Ron Paul’s insistence on returning to the gold standard: mocked frequently, yet still not enough) would love nothing better than to play this style anyway, and the Bobcats responded by doing everything but sealing off the perimeter, which is like shooting the oncoming walker everywhere but the head.

In the obligatory “hype-up-any-newcomer-who-shows-signs-of-competence” article following Tuesday’s preseason game, the Charlotte Observer’s Tom Sorensen wrote, “Every time (Kemba) Walker had the ball you sat up a little straighter and stopped talking with the people next to you, because you knew something was going to happen and it probably was going to be good.”  Judging by the turnout, I’m surprised Sorensen had anyone sitting next to him.

In front of dozens of fans at Time Warner Arena, a mix of Bobcats and random strangers dressed as Bobcats defeated the Atlanta Hawks, 79-77.  The game and its implications were very much like those of the movie Eraserhead: low-budget, nightmarish, and probably meaningless.  For me, the four most most “wow” moments of the night were as follows:

The Bobcats played the first quarter with a sense of intensity their fans had been hoping to see. They matched the Hawks to end the first quarter with a 27-27 tie. The second quarter saw the “Hyde” versus the Dr. Jekyll of the first. The Hawks scored 18 unanswered points before the ‘Cats managed to score from two DJ Augustine free throws. The Bobcats made some solid defensive stops but the Hawks took a half-time lead, 52-39, into the break. The first half was won by the Hawks but the second half, and game, was owned by the ‘Cats.